Kitabı oku: «Kingdom of Shadows», sayfa 3

Shaking her long hair back from her face the child threw herself down full length on the grass and began to scoop the cool water into her mouth. The young man standing behind her eyed her bare legs and naked brown feet doubtfully. ‘You’ll be in trouble when your nurse finds out where you are,’ he said, his face unwillingly relaxing into a smile.

‘Nurse!’ She sat up. Some of her hair had slipped into the water and it dripped on to the shoulders of her thin woollen gown. ‘I don’t have a nurse. I’m a grown woman, Robert of Carrick, and don’t you forget it.’

‘You are?’ The young man laughed out loud. ‘I beg your pardon, my lady Isobel. But all the ladies I know have bevies of maids and attendants following them everywhere, and men-at-arms to watch over them when they stir from their castles!’

‘I do too.’ She clasped her knees with a shiver. ‘I ran away from them when I knew you were riding up here. I wanted to come too. I get so bored doing what Lady Buchan tells me all day long, Robert.’

‘Nevertheless, you should obey her.’ Robert looked troubled. ‘If you are to marry the earl it is important that his mother teaches you all she knows. Lord Buchan is a great and powerful man, Isobel. He will expect much from his wife.’

‘Pooh.’ Isobel flung herself backwards on the grass, shading her eyes to stare up at the sky. ‘He’ll never marry me! He barely knows I exist. Do you know, when he comes to Duncairn or Slains to see his mother he sometimes takes me on his knee and tells me stories. He gives me presents and sweetmeats, just like the children of his brothers. I’m sure he thinks I must be one of them.’

‘I doubt it.’ Robert stood looking down at her. ‘You and he have been betrothed since you were a small child. He’s only been waiting for you to grow up. That is why your mother gave you to Lady Buchan to bring up, when your brother was sent to England after your father died.’

There was a long silence as his words sank in. She sat up again, pushing the hair back off her face. It was a small oval face with huge grey eyes, set below straight dark determined eyebrows, a face which promised great beauty. Defensively she hugged her arms around herself, unconsciously hiding the budding breasts which barely showed yet beneath the loose folds of the dusty gown. ‘Then perhaps I’m not grown up,’ she said at last in a whisper. ‘Perhaps I never will.’

The betrothal had taken place before her brother was born. She remembered vividly the day at Falkland Castle when her father had told his wife what he had arranged. Neither the earl nor the beautiful Joanna de Clare had realised that their small daughter was listening and taking in every word of their conversation. It had been after Duncan of Fife, young and inexperienced as he was, had been chosen as one of the two earls on the small council appointed to rule Scotland after the death of King Alexander. He had received the news of his appointment confidently, attributing it to his own undoubted qualities, becoming since that day more conceited than ever, flaunting his position, using it everywhere to his own advantage. Later Isobel had learned the truth: that the earldom of Fife had to be represented because of its pre-eminence amongst the seven ancient earldoms of Scotland; before she had believed it was because her father was a great and good man.

The earl had glanced down at his daughter as she played near him. ‘I have been speaking to my lord of Buchan. He is willing to agree to her betrothal to his heir.’ Duncan had preened himself, waiting for his wife’s reaction. Isobel too had waited; and she had seen the horror and disbelief on Joanna’s face. ‘You wish to betroth that child to John Comyn?’ Her eyes had grown enormous. ‘But, my lord, she is only a baby, and he a grown man. He would never want a child for a wife!’

‘He will wait.’ Duncan had given a snort of laughter, throwing back his head so that Isobel could see even from where she sat on the ground the gaping hole in his gum where the surgeon had pulled a great aching molar. ‘By the saints, he’s waited long enough to take a wife as it is!’ He had grown serious suddenly, sitting forward on the edge of the wooden bench, resting his chin on his hand so that he could gaze into his wife’s face. ‘Don’t you see what a marvellous union this will be? The Comyns are the richest and most powerful family in the land. The old earl is with me one of the six guardians, but when he dies, which must be soon, Joanna, it would be expedient if our two families were linked by more than just friendship. Our lands in the north march together – what could be better than to bring them closer. After all,’ he had added bitterly, ‘it looks as though that puny girl will be my only heir.’ He had paused, and Isobel, hugging herself with sudden devastating misery, saw the sparkle of tears in her mother’s eyes as he rushed on in a bluff attempt to cover his cruel remark. ‘Think, Joanna, think of the power this will bring us. If it hadn’t been for this little queen of ours far away across the water, it might well have been a Comyn chosen as king. Think of that.’

And now that little queen had died without ever coming to Scotland, and as Duncan had predicted, a member of the huge Comyn family had been chosen as king – John Balliol, Lord Buchan’s cousin.

Only six weeks after that terrifying news of her impending betrothal had come tidings of the death of the old Earl of Buchan. Joanna had been afraid that now he was free of his father’s influence John Comyn would repudiate the agreement. She had heard, and so had Isobel, all eyes and ears as usual, how he had sworn and flown into a rage when told that his father’s choice for his bride was only four years old; but then he too had seen the strength which would lie in such an alliance and only two weeks after his father’s death he had come to Fife for the betrothal ceremony and Isobel had seen him for the first time. He had brought a fine filigree brooch of silver for Joanna and a heavy ring, engraved with the Buchan seal, for Isobel; her small finger had not even the strength to hold it. Once the ceremony was over he had galloped out of the castle courtyard, followed by his retinue. Two days after that a messenger had arrived from him bearing a doll. The riders had, it seemed, passed a travelling packman, and the earl had found a gift more suited for his little bride. They had heard nothing of him after that until Isobel’s father died.

Robert rode ahead of her to within sight of the castle, then he drew rein. ‘You go on, back to your attendants,’ he said. ‘I think it better that we’re not seen together. I’ll ride on south to Mar, as I intended in the first place.’ His smile softened the rebuke.

‘If you see my great grandmother at Kildrummy will you give her a kiss from me.’ Isobel smiled suddenly. Malcolm, Earl of Fife, had died some twenty years before, long before Isobel was born, and his widow Helen had remarried, taking as her husband the powerful Earl of Mar, but she had kept her interest in her Fife family, particularly Isobel, in whom she recognised much of herself when she was young; and Isobel, in a world devoid now of close family, loved her dearly.

‘Why don’t you get into trouble if you ride without attendants?’ Isobel asked Robert suddenly. ‘It’s just as dangerous for you to ride the hills alone.’

‘My attendants are waiting for me, as you well know.’ He slapped the neck of his horse affectionately. ‘Besides, I am a man.’ He frowned. ‘Will you get into bad trouble when you go back?’

‘I’m bound to.’ She looked up at him unrepentantly. ‘But Mairi, who has charge over me, never does very much, even though she says she will. She says I’m uncontrollable.’

‘I can believe it!’ He laughed. ‘I’m glad I’m not to have the marrying of you, cousin. I doubt if I could cope.’

She giggled. ‘No, you couldn’t. I shall be a shrew and a scold and no man will want anything to do with me! I shall ride the hills dressed in men’s clothes and be my own mistress. Then my Lord Buchan will wash his hands of me and marry an old docile lady who can give him ten fat babies!’

This time they whipped her. They took her into the great hall at Duncairn where Elizabeth, Dowager Countess of Buchan, was sitting on the low dais.

Isobel stood before her defiantly, her fists clenched in the folds of her skirt, as Lady Buchan distastefully looked her up and down, taking in the ragged gown hitched up in her girdle revealing her muddy, scratched legs and feet.

‘So, where did you find her this time?’ she asked. ‘In the byre with the animals?’

Mairi, a stout woman of indeterminate years and unswerving loyalty to her young charge, shook her head miserably. ‘She went out riding alone, my lady. She told her escort to go back without her.’

‘And they obeyed her?’ Lady Buchan’s eyebrows shot upwards towards her fashionably plaited and netted coils of hair.

‘Oh yes, my lady. The men always do as Lady Isobel says.’ Mairi bit her lip. ‘She’s awful determined, for a lass.’

‘Is she, indeed?’ Lady Buchan’s face was growing more and more grim. ‘And did you set off to ride looking like that, my lady?’

Isobel coloured a little at the sarcastic tone ‘I took my kirtle and my stockings and shoes off and bundled them up in the heather so that they’d not be spoiled,’ she said defiantly.

‘I see. And what were you intending to do, that they might get spoiled?’ The older woman rose to her feet suddenly. Her face had sharpened with suspicion. ‘Was there someone with you, out there?’

‘No, my lady,’ Isobel blurted, suddenly guilty. ‘There wasn’t anyone there.’

‘Are you sure?’ Taking a step towards her, Lady Buchan seized her by the wrist. ‘No young man? No love to amuse you? Where is my son?’ She turned abruptly to the attendants who encircled them.

‘He’s just returned to the castle, my lady,’ a voice replied. ‘He said he’d be in to greet you directly.’

John, Earl of Buchan, was as good as his word, striding in to the castle hall only a few minutes later, his spurs ringing on the stone flags.

‘So, what is this? A trial with so small a prisoner?’ He dropped a kiss in the air some inches above his mother’s head and then straightened to look at Isobel, standing before Elizabeth, her arm still firmly clasped by the wrist.

He was a tall, hirsute man in his late thirties, good-looking, with hard brown eyes. Isobel took a step back as his gaze fell on her.

‘This child has been roaming again. She behaves like a strumpet.’ Although near sixty, Lady Buchan was still a slim, graceful woman, without a streak of grey in her dark lustrous hair. She was almost as tall as her son as they stood facing each other across Isobel’s head.

‘A strumpet, is it?’ John looked down at Isobel with sudden interest, his eyes travelling down her slight form.

‘Aye, a strumpet. And her maidenhood will be long gone before you get around to making her your wife!’ Elizabeth of Buchan tightened her lips primly. ‘She is uncontrollable.’

‘Surely not.’ John stepped forward, and taking Isobel’s arm, pulled her away from his mother. ‘How old are you, sweetheart? I thought you were still a child, but I gather you are not content with a child’s games any longer.’

Too proud to shrink away from him, Isobel straightened her shoulders and stuck out her chin. ‘I am fourteen, my lord.’

‘So you are indeed. Old enough to be bedded it seems, so old enough to be wedded. Who did she lie with?’ He shot the question over her head at the unfortunate Mairi. ‘Whoever it was, he’ll pay for it with his life.’

‘There was no one, my lord.’ It was Isobel who answered, her eyes blazing. ‘Your lady mother seems to think I would lie with stable boys and serfs – I, the daughter of the Earl of Fife, a descendent of the ancient house of Duff!’

‘Hoity toity!’ The dowager countess gave a humourless laugh. ‘If you behave like a strumpet, madam of Duff, you may expect to be treated as one. She has disobeyed me too often, John. She should be whipped.’

Isobel bit her lip. She stood her ground, though, her wrist still firmly held in John’s rough fingers.

He seemed to be considering, and for a moment she dared hope he would reprieve her, but it was no good. He released her wrist.

‘Very good, Mother. Perhaps a lesson in obedience now will make her a douce wife later. But don’t hurt her too much. I’d hate to see such a pretty child marked.’

Almost blind with rage and humiliation, Isobel barely noticed as she was led, stumbling, to the chamber she shared with Mairi and two of Countess Elizabeth’s grandchildren, and there made to take off her gown. Standing shivering in her shift, she watched dumbly as one of the countess’s ladies appeared, carrying a hazel switch.

She was too proud to cry. When it was over she pulled her gown back on with Mairi’s help, and then walked in silence to the deep window embrasure. Only there, behind the heavy curtain, did she allow herself to waver for a moment, kneeling on the cushioned window seat, staring out across the glittering sea.

The telephone made Clare jump nearly out of her skin. It was several minutes before she could gather her wits enough to stagger to her feet to answer it.

It was Emma.

‘I thought I’d missed you again. Are we still going out tomorrow evening?’ Emma’s voice was down to earth, cheerful.

‘Tomorrow?’ Clare was dazed.

‘You remember. We agreed we’d have a meal together – just us, without husbands – to try that new place we were talking about. Are you all right, Clare?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Clare pushed her hair back from her face distractedly. ‘I must have been asleep. What time is it?’

‘Just after five –’

‘Five?’ Clare’s eyes opened wide. ‘My God, I’m due at the bank in less than an hour. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Em, OK?’

She sat still for a minute after she put down the phone, trying to gather her wits. The meditation, if that is what it had been, had been a terrifying reality. It was as if, in sitting down and opening the secret, closed recesses of her consciousness to the past, she had allowed someone else’s memories to come flooding back. It was as if she were Isobel and Isobel were she; as if she had entered completely into the mind of this child who had, according to Aunt Margaret, been her ancestor, and as if Isobel had entered into hers. Shaken, she stood up and gazed into the mirror, trying to catch a glimpse of those other eyes which had, in the silence of her meditation, looked out through her own. But it was no use. They had gone. All she saw were the eyes of Clare Royland, a twentieth-century woman who was late for an evening with her husband.

Shrugging off her mood as best she could she began at last to get ready. She slipped into the green silk dress with its swirling calf-length skirt, and reached for Aunt Margaret’s gold pendant to clasp round her neck, staring at herself in the mirror for a moment one last time before reaching slowly for her hairbrush. Already it was nearly half past five.

The taxi dropped her opposite the broad flight of steps which led up to the door of the merchant bankers, Beattie Cameron, at 6.15 p.m. exactly. Slowly, trying to compose herself into the role of partner’s wife, she walked up the steps and smiled at the commissionaire who unlocked the door for her.

‘Good evening, Mr Baines. Is Mr Royland in his office?’

‘Good evening, Mrs Royland. It’s a treat to see you again, if I may say so. I’ll just check at the desk.’ He led the way to the reception desk and picked up the internal phone.

Clare stared round at the huge entrance hall. This was still the old building, for all its modern plate-glass doors, the broad flight of stairs and the oak panelling betraying the office’s solid Victorian origins. Above the grotesque marble fireplace at one end of the hall was a large portrait of James Cameron, co-founder of the bank, and opposite him, hanging over another equally imposing fireplace, Donald Beattie, grandfather of the present senior partner. Paul’s office was at the top of the first flight of stairs.

As Baines rang off she turned towards the stairs with a smile. ‘All right to go up?’

‘He’s not in his office, Mrs Royland.’ Baines came out from behind the desk. ‘He’s in the new building. If you’d like to follow me, I’ll show you where to go.’

He opened a door in the far wall beyond the stairs and ushered her through. There, a glass walkway lined with exotic plants led directly into the new tower building where the bank and the stockbrokers, Westlake Pierce, her brother’s firm, now formed the nucleus of a new and powerful financial services group.

Clare followed him into the fluorescently lit building until he stopped outside a row of lift doors. ‘This one will take you straight to him, Mrs Royland. The penthouse conference room. Non-stop. You get a breathtaking view from up there. You haven’t been in the new building before, have you?’

He paused, his finger on the button as the lift door slid back. ‘Mrs Royland? Are you all right?’

Clare had closed her eyes, her fists clenched tightly as she felt her stomach turn over in panic. The lift – a steel box with deep grey carpeting on floor and walls – was waiting for her, the door open, the little red eye above the call button alight and watching.

Desperately, she swallowed. ‘Are there any stairs?’

‘Stairs?’ He looked shocked. ‘There are thirty-two storeys, Mrs Royland! Don’t you like lifts? I don’t like them much myself, truth to tell, but they’re fast, these ones. You’ll be all right.’ He gave her a reassuring smile.

She bit her lip. ‘Would you come up with me?’

‘I can’t.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not supposed to leave the desk. By rights, I shouldn’t even have come through here …’

There was nothing for it. Giving him a shaky smile, Clare stepped into the lift, clutching her leather purse tightly to her, and watched as the door slid shut.

Paul couldn’t have done it deliberately. He wouldn’t. Yet how could he have forgotten her claustrophobia, her terror, above all of lifts? Why couldn’t he have waited downstairs and come up with her, rather than making her travel up alone? Was this some weird punishment for being half an hour late? Breathe deeply. Relax. Use what you’ve been taught. And count. Slowly count. The lift is a fast one. Any moment it will stop and the doors will slide open.

It was slowing. She braced herself ready for the slight jolt as it stopped. Relieved, she waited for the door to open. There was total silence around her. Nothing happened. Even the slight hum of the mechanism had stopped. Then the lights went out.

‘Oh God!’ Clare dropped her purse in the darkness, the adrenalin of panic knifing through her stomach. Desperately she reached out in front of her, until her hands encountered the heavy steel doors, groping frantically for the crack between them. She could hear her breathing, hear her own sobbing as she clawed desperately around her. It was like the nightmare all over again, the nightmare of the cage – but this cage was real and solid, and it wasn’t a dream. Was there an escape hatch? A telephone? She couldn’t remember. Frantically she tried to keep a hold on the threads of reason as she hammered on the heavy, fabric-deadened walls. But there was nothing. Just a square, empty box.

‘Oh Christ! Oh God, please don’t let this be happening! Please!’ Already it was growing hot and airless. The darkness was absolute; tangible, like black oil swirling round her –

Falling to her knees she put her hands over her face, trying to cut out the darkness, rocking backwards and forwards on the soft executive carpet, and at last, uncontrollably, she began to scream.

3

‘Clare? Clare darling, you’re all right. It’s all over. You’re safe.’

Paul was squatting beside her in the lift, his arms tightly round her. Behind him, the broad penthouse reception area was bright with light. ‘Come on, Clare. Can you stand up? Nothing happened. There was some sort of power failure. It was only a few seconds, darling.’

Shaking like a leaf, with her husband’s arm around her, Clare managed to rise to her feet and Paul helped her out of the lift. ‘Come on, darling. There are chairs in the conference room. Penny, could you get some brandy? Quickly.’ Paul’s secretary had been hovering white-faced in the doorway.

Clinging to him, Clare followed Paul into the huge conference room with its floor-to-ceiling windows. Some were screened with blinds, but no blinds were drawn on the western side, and the whole side of the room was a blaze of fiery red from the setting sun. Helping Clare to a chair, Paul took the proffered glass from his secretary and held it to his wife’s lips. ‘Drink this. My God, woman, you frightened me. Why on earth did you scream like that?’

‘I’m sorry, Paul, but I couldn’t help it –’

‘Of course you couldn’t.’ Penny put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She was a plump pretty woman of about thirty, smartly dressed in a dark suit with a frilly jabot at the collar of her blouse. Next to the green swirl of silk under Clare’s mink coat it looked odd, even indecently sober. ‘I hate that lift myself. I’m always terrified it might get stuck.’

‘It didn’t get stuck.’ Paul sounded irritated. ‘It stopped for a couple of seconds when the electricity went off. That’s all.’

‘It was several minutes, and it probably seemed like several hours to poor Mrs Royland,’ Penny retorted stoutly. She glared at her employer.

Shakily Clare took another sip of brandy. ‘I’m all right now, really.’ She managed a smile.

Behind Paul the sunset was fading fast. Greyness was settling over the city. No one had switched on any lights in the conference room itself, and it began to seem very dark.

Paul was watching his wife closely, as if undecided what to do. The wave of tenderness which had swept over him as he helped her from the lift had passed, leaving him strangely detached once more. When at last he spoke, his eyes were cold. Whatever regret and sadness that still touched him when he thought of their longing to have a child had been firmly suppressed. He had far more immediate worries on his mind.

‘You look very pale, Clare. I don’t think you should come to the reception after all.’

‘Nonsense, Paul. I’m fine.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Paul was firm. ‘Penny, would you go back with Clare? Get a taxi and see her to the house. I have to go on to this wretched do, but I’ll come on home straight away afterwards. You should go to bed, darling. You look completely overwrought.’

‘I’m not, Paul.’ Clare was suddenly angry. ‘I’m perfectly all right. If you’d been waiting in your office none of this would have happened.’

‘I thought you’d like to see the view.’

‘But you know how much I hate lifts. Couldn’t you at least have waited downstairs and come up with me?’ She knew she sounded petulant, and the realisation made her even more angry.

He was looking at her thoughtfully. ‘I suppose I should have. I’m sorry.’

‘Oh Paul.’ She bit her lip suddenly, desperately wanting him to put his arms around her, but it was Penny who kept ineffectually patting her shoulder.

Paul had reached into his pocket for his wallet. He extricated a ten-pound note. ‘Here, Penny. Would you take her home now, please, then go on yourself. I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘Paul –’

‘No, darling. I insist. I’m afraid you will have to go down in the lift again, there’s no other way, but I’m sure you’ll be all right with Penny with you.’

Clare swallowed her anger and disappointment with difficulty. Paul was treating her like a spoiled child who needed punishing. She wanted to shout at him, to defy him, to go to the party in spite of him, but then again, for his sake she did not want to argue in front of the other woman; and she had to admit, her legs did still feel shaky. She glanced up at him, suppressing with difficulty the new wave of fear which swept over her at the thought of getting into the lift again. ‘But what about you? Why can’t you come down with us?’

‘I’ll follow in five minutes or so. I have a few papers to sort out.’ He glanced at the long conference table. At the far end his case lay open, a neat pile of documents beside it on the polished surface. His gold fountain pen lay meticulously aligned on top of the papers. ‘You will be all right, Clare. Penny will look after you.’

Unceremoniously he ushered them both to the door. He didn’t wait to see them call the lift.

Penny pressed the button, her arm firmly linked through Clare’s. As the doors slid open she glanced up at the small glass-fronted cupboard set into the wall high up near the lift buttons. Inside it were all the emergency power switches for the top floor. Sitting in the conference room, bathed in the light of the setting sun, she had got up to close the door on to the landing after Paul went out to the cloakroom. She was sure she had seen him standing there near the switches. Then all the lights had gone out and, dazzled by the sunlight behind her, she could see nothing on the dark landing at all.

‘The club is almost empty this evening.’ Peter Cassidy greeted James Gordon in the changing room at Cannon’s as the latter, having fitted his card into the electronic door, came in carrying his sports bag. ‘We needn’t have bothered to book a court.’ He stooped to retie the lace on one white tennis shoe. ‘How is your sister, James? Em seems to think she’s going through a rough patch.’

‘Is she?’ Putting his card back in his wallet, James ripped off his tie and pulled the Asser and Turnbull shirt up over his head without undoing more than two buttons. ‘I haven’t talked to Clare for ages. I think she was a bit miffed about me inheriting Aunt Margaret’s money. I mean, the old girl had a very good reason for doing it, but Paul and Clare didn’t see it that way. Paul wanted to contest the will and have her declared senile.’

‘Which she wasn’t, I gather.’ Peter sat down on the bench in the middle of the room to wait for him.

‘No way. She was right on the ball up to the last five minutes, Ma said. Clare knew that of course. I don’t think she cares, actually. It’s Paul. You’d think with all his money he’d leave it alone, wouldn’t you? But perhaps it’s a habit with him.’ He paused reflectively. On the whole he was a great admirer of Paul’s. ‘Anyway, I thought Clare might be too embarrassed by the whole stupid thing to want to talk to me for a bit.’ He grinned, flicking his dark hair back from his face. ‘Besides, she hasn’t been much fun lately. She leads such a boring life, stuck in that house stuck in the middle of nowhere.’ He stepped out of his trousers and reached for his shorts.

‘It doesn’t sound boring from what I’ve been hearing.’ Peter laughed. ‘She’s having personal private lessons in body-building from a continental lothario.’

James had been rummaging in his sports bag for a shirt. Abruptly he straightened. ‘Oh, come on. That’s one of Emma’s stories!’

‘No, you ask Clare.’

‘I will.’ James laughed. ‘Good old sis. Perhaps she’s finally kicked over the traces. I always knew she would in the end. I wonder what Paul thinks?’

‘He’s horrified. He was the one that rang Em. He wants her to talk Clare out of it all. Apparently he thinks it’s all some sort of compensation for not getting pregnant.’

‘What a load of crap.’ James had finished putting on the white socks and shoes. Stowing the last of his things into his locker he picked up his squash racquet. ‘It’s Paul who is neurotic about having a son. I don’t think Clare gives a screw. Come on. I’m going to thrash you tonight, then last man to finish twelve lengths of the pool pays for dinner.’

James looked distastefully round at the disordered living room of his flat in the Barbican when he got home that evening and sighed. The cleaning woman had failed to come for the second time running, and it was thick with dust. Dirty plates and glasses littered every free surface and there were clothes scattered on the floor. The air smelt stale. Throwing open the windows he went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was empty of food. Tonics, cans of lager, two bottles of Bollinger, that was all. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t hungry. Peter had gone home to Emma for supper in the end. James had been invited, but he hadn’t wanted to go – there was always tension in the Cassidy house. He helped himself to a can of Pils and, going back into the living room, threw himself down on an easy chair, picked up the phone, and extending the aerial, began to punch out a number.

It was several minutes before she replied, and when she did she sounded depressed.

‘Hi, Clare, how are you?’

‘James?’ From the slight sniff he wondered suddenly if she had been crying and he frowned. Deep down, beneath all the aggression, he was very fond of his sister.

After Penny had dropped her off at the house an hour earlier, Clare had gone straight upstairs to lie down, not even bothering to remove her dress. Still indignant at Paul for sending her home like a child who has been forbidden a party because it has misbehaved, she was even more cross with herself for allowing him to do it. She had been lying gazing up at the ceiling, still feeling very shaky, when James rang. Now slowly she sat up, and, the receiver to her ear, swung her feet to the carpet, pushing her hair back from her face.

‘It’s a long time since you bothered to ring. What do you want?’ she asked, forcing herself to sound cheerful.

That was more like it. He grinned to himself as he lay back in his chair, resting his ankle across his knee. ‘I don’t want anything. I can afford my own, now, remember?’ he said maliciously. ‘No, seriously, sis. I’ve been hearing weird stories about you and your body-building. What gives?’